Features Aerospace

In the world of innovation, where ideas can be as valuable as gold, a company’s head of intellectual property is a quiet but powerful guardian. Their task is intricate yet straightforward at its core: protect the intangible assets that define their company’s edge. Part strategist, part negotiator and part watchdog, this traditional IP lead balances […]

As it lumbers over tarmac at an air base or lands on a 2,000-foot airstrip carved into a mountain range, the sound of Lockheed Martin C-130J’s Super Hercules’ four turbo prop engines is a familiar thrum.  Able to haul nearly 25 tons, the aircraft supplies military and humanitarian operations globally, delivering cargo by parachute or […]

Called eVTOLs for short, they’re not the most elegantly named aircraft, but they’re catching on with investors and pilots. According to the nonprofit Vertical Flight Society, eVTOLs, or electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, are drawing billions of dollars in investment as a new and sustainable future form of air transportation. The aircraft, which are […]

For Robin Ricketts, there’s nothing quite like sitting at the console of mission control during a space launch. There’s the countdown, then the call for the ignition, and finally the sonic rumble in her bones as the engines erupt and the rocket flies into the stratosphere, leaving a billowing contrail of water vapor in its […]

For almost a decade, Nima Seyedali spent hours analyzing aircraft as a mechanical engineer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Day in and day out, he immersed himself in damage tolerance and structural fatigue analysis. By 1997, he was understandably ready for a change. After shifting to Boeing’s Customer Division, he worked as a client liaison, handling […]

No one at Woodward Inc. is trying to reinvent the proverbial wheel. What they do is innovate to make the wheels (aircraft and industrial engines) run better by optimizing performance, efficiency and emissions, says Chris Fawzy. That dates back to Amos Woodward’s 1870 invention of a faster, more efficient governor for water wheels generating power. […]

He’s a long way from public housing in Queens, New York, where he grew up, but Alexander Long has never allowed fear to stop him from reaching in his career. To protect GE Aviation’s intellectual property interests, he’s built its IP legal team over the last five years by applying basic principles of diversity and […]

It was an eleventh hour emergency, Susan Bridgman says, when she received a news flash from the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security this spring: Changes were being made to regulatory codes that would impact trade practices between her San Diego software client and its customers in China and Russia—not exactly what one wants to […]

It was an energizing experience, Siddhartha M. Venkatesan recalls with a good-natured laugh. After all, it’s a rare thing for a 40-something family man—already well accomplished and with a high-profile position at a demanding company—to enroll in an MBA program. But earlier this summer the now 42-year-old Venkatesan earned that honor from the prestigious Wharton […]

When it comes to selling high-tech helicopters worldwide, it’s safe to say the pile of regulatory paperwork to meet requirements of multiple countries is—excuse the pun—sky high. Just ask Donatella, Leonardo Helicopters’ head of legal operations. She’ll tell you that every day the Italian multinational company specializing in aerospace, defense and security operations has 5,000 […]